Tale of Yuniq
"We have a new transfer student - Yuniq."
Yuniq trotted into the classroom and flicked her multi-hued mane before announcing, "Hello everyone. Happy to be here."
A muted murmur broke out across the classroom of foals as they laid their eyes on a unicorn for the first time. Yuniq was surprised at their bewildered looks. At Unicorn Land, she had always been admired for having the prettiest mane.
Madame Doe stamped her hooves for attention and signalled Yuniq to take a seat.
She had been forewarned by her unicorn friends that their tribe wasn't that spread out in these parts, which had equine domination. She could feel intense glare from other classmates and even caught few whispered words like 'Too many colours', 'Haughty', so on. Usually, she would have stared back at them but for some reason, she felt overwhelmed with this strange feeling of being out-of-place.
During recess, as she clopped her way to cafeteria and took an empty seat, she was interrupted by a young mare, "Excuse me, that's our seat."
Yuniq once again could feel their judging eyes on her and without a word, left the place. As she took her seat at courtyard to finish her lunch, someone approached her.
"Hi, are you new? Love your colours."
Yuniq looked up to find a young zebra smiling at her with admiration in her eyes.
Yuniq slowly replied, "Thank you, you are the first to speak to me nicely."
"I saw you in the cafeteria. You shouldn't have just left."
"But they said it was theirs."
"Well, that might be true but that doesn't mean you can't use it too. You know, I'm the only zebra in this school."
"Really? I feel I'm the only unicorn here so thought they may not like if I contradict them or intrude in their space."
"You wouldn't know what's going to happen unless you try to find out, right? I know, being different feels disheartening sometimes but you are still you. Don't give up on things for others' sake even before having a go at it."
As the school bell chimed, zebra galloped to her class, leaving Yuniq to ponder.
Next day, when she sat at the same table at the cafeteria, the group from other day informed her again to vacate.
"Ummm, I'm new here so I don't know I can't sit here but is it fine if I share? I'm Yuniq from the Unicorn land, by the way. Nice to meet you."
The group exchanged looks and introduced themselves one by one. Soon, they were all having their lunches together amidst a lot of cheer and fun.
Yuniq was happy that she had tried and didn't give up. Like her other classmates, even she had been judging them before interacting with them.
She was going to thank her first friend from yesterday who had helped her realise that it's fine to take the first step yourself instead of waiting for others to offer.
[ratemypost]
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